Doll head



Jan. 18,1938. F. FENTON ET AL 2,105,810

DOLL HEAD Filed NOV. 10, 1952 s Sheets-Shet 1 I M75755 fink .Fsnibn Jan. 18, I F FENTON ET AL 2,105,810

DOLL HEAD Filed Nov. 10, 1952 5 -Sh et 2 Jim/5277772? .Jfivkfsnfbn JAE/EH52 J1 :Uadye yw w Patented Jan. 18, 1938 UN-TE ST DOLL HEAD Frank Fenton and Howard M. Dodge, Akron,

Ghio, assignors to The B. F. Goodrich Company, New York, N. Y., a corporation of New York Application November 10, 1932, Serial No. 642,080

21 Claims.

This invention relates to doll heads and more especially to doll heads formed at least in part of soft pliable vulcanized rubber and provided with rigid parts such as eyes and teeth. The invention is .especially useful in the production of soft rubber doll heads having movable or sleeping eyes.

Heretofore doll heads with movable eyes generally have been made of ceramic, wood composition or other rigid materials and the eye mechanism has been supported from the rigid spaced side Walls on the interior of the head. Since such heads when made of porcelain or other ceramic materials are easily breakable and all rigid materials heretofore used undergo great shrinkage during manufacture, it has been found practically impossible to provide supporting walls accurately spaced apart, necessitating the use of adjustable eye supporting mechanism and individual adjustment thereof for each head. Such heads also have an unnatural feel and appearance clue to their rigid construction. When made of molded fiber or wood compositions the shrinkage is not only disadvantageous but it is also difficult to secure the metal parts to the composition and complicated and expensive eye supporting mechanism is required.

Doll heads have been made of flexible and resilient rubber and these may be quite accurately formed with facial characteristics butheretofore the difiiculties of providing such a head with satisfactory eye mechanism have limited the use of pliable rubber to heads having eyes formed as a part thereof. The resilience and flexibility of the rubber head when used withmovable eyes would permit deflection of the eye sockets and adjacent walls of the head so as to interfere with the free operation of the eyes if not to permanently damage the operating'mechanism.

The principal objects of this invention are to provide a structure having walls of varying pliability and rigidity, to provide a structure which will have sufficient rigidity adjacent the eye aperpart of the adjoiningbody in section, the line of section being taken on a vertical plane intersecting theaxis of the near-eye ball, showing the pre ferred form of the device.

Fig. 2 is a section on line 2-2 of Fig. l, the back of the head being broken away.

Fig. 3 isa detail view of the eye mechanism and the surrounding reinforcement looking for- Ward from inside the head as indicated at 3-3 in Fig l.

Fig. 4 is a detail sectional view taken on line l l of Fig. 2.

Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the hard rubber reinforcing memben:

Fig. 6 is a view similar to Fig. lshowing a modification thereof, the eye-balls being removed and parts being broken away.

Fig; 7 is a similar view showing a further modification, the eye mechanism being omitted.

Fig. 8 is asectional view similar to Fig. 2 but showing the form'disclosed in Fig. 7, the eye mechanisms being omitted.

Fig. 9 is a view similar to Fig. 8, showing a further modification.

Fig. 10 is a central vertical section through a doll head showing the teeth and tooth supporting structure.

Fig, 11 is a vertical sectional view of a mold for forming the head.

Fig. 12 is a horizontal section of the same taken on line-l2'l2 of Fig. 1.1.

Referring to the drawings, numeral 10 designates the head of the doll, which is molded to provide a hollow structure having a wall of predetermined varying thickness and therefore varying rigidity, the walls being formed of a resilient pliable material such as soft rubber, having its outer surface formed to provide facial characteristics including'apertured eye sockets. For this purpose we prefer to use'a solid molding core 50 and solid female mold parts 5!, 52, in order to form the interior of the head accurately and to provide the proper thickness of material where desired, the core 50 being withdrawn through the V stretching of the neck in use where the head is held in engagement with the body 12 by springs 49 or their equivalent. 7

Apertures l3 for the eyes are formed in the eye sockets during the molding thereof and adjacent thereto, on the inside of the head, interconnecting cells l4, defined by inwardly extending walls l5, are provided. The eyes I6 are mounted on a shaft l! rotatably mounted in bearings l8 formed in a rigid casing I!) which fills the cells 14 and the channel 20 therebetween and by its rigidity protects the eyes and strengthens the portion of the head in which they are located. Tabs 2| struck from the sidewalls of the casing l9 retain the shaft I! in its bearings l8. A lever 22 attached to the shaft l1 between the eyes is provided with a weight 23 for normally holding the eyes in open position and a stop 24 for contacting with the wall of the forehead when the eyes are in closed or sleeping position is formed integral with the lever.

In the preferred form of the device the head is additionally strengthened by forming the walls I5 and the adjacent portions of the inside of the head of a compound of more rigid nature such as hard rubber. This advantageously may be accomplished by separately molding and partially vulcanizing a reinforcing member such as that illustrated in Fig. 5 from a hard rubber compound or other suitable plastic adapted to become relatively rigid and to be intimately attached to soft rubber.

The reinforcement so formed is roughened and cemented on its attaching face and is inserted in a cavity 53 formed therefor in the core 50 of the head mold. The soft rubber material for forming the remainder of the head is assembled around the core 50 and the reinforcement and the whole subjected to heat and pressure in the mold. The resulting structure is rigid in the region surrounding the casing l9. Wings 25 of rigid material extending from the walls 15 reinforce the temples of the head and prevent deflection of the side walls to such an extent as to interfere with the eye mechanism.

The metal casing l9 which supports the eye mechanism may be inserted after the head has been molded. Where the walls l5 have been molded from rigid material such as hard rubber or the like, the metal casing may be cemented in place or simply forced into the cells provided therefor while the head is warm, the shrinkage of the hard rubber upon cooling being depended upon to hold the casing in position.

When the walls l5 are formed of soft rubber compound as in Fig. 6 the metal casing may be cemented in place by the use of a cement comprising a heat plastic rubber isomer such as described in the Geer Patent No. 1,617,588, dated February 15, 1927.

Where it is desired to so mount the eye mechanism that it may readily be replaced or held in place without cementthe walls 15 of soft rubber may be formed with inturned flanges 26, extending all around the cell margins, as shown in Fig. 7 or with integral stops 2! extending over the ends of the cells from the side walls of the head as shown in Fig. 8. With either the construction in which the walls l5 are formed of soft rubber or thatin which hard rubber is used retaining strips 28 of rubber or other material may be cemented across the cell cavities after the eye mechanism is in place, for retaining the 'eye mechanism, as shown in Fig. 9.

Where it is desired to provide teeth for the doll head, the head maybe formed with cavities 29, surrounding a mouth opening, during the molding of the head and a metal clip or casing 30 adapted to hold the teeth 3| may be inserted in the cavities after the head has been molded and will then be retained in place by overhanging elastic flanges 32 in the same manner as the eye mechanism is held by flanges 26 or stops 21'.

We claim:

1. A hollow doll head comprising a pliable elastic wall having its outer surface formed to provide a pair of apertured facial elements, a rigid casing member for supporting and exposing a pair of supplementary facial elements at said apertures, and means extending inwardly of the head from said pliable wall and attached thereto adjacent the eye sockets for retaining said rigid member.

2. A hollow doll head comprising a pliable elastic wall having its outer surface formed to provide a pair of apertured eye sockets, a rigid casing member for supporting and exposing a pair of movable eyes at said apertures, and means extending inwardly of the head from said pliable wall adjacent the eye sockets for retaining said rigid member.

3. A hollow doll head comprising a pliable elastic wall having its outer surface formed to provide a pair of apertured facial elements, a rigid casing member having means for supporting and exposing a pair of supplemental facial elements at said apertures, and elastic means integral with said wall and extending inwardly of the head for retaining said rigid member in position.

4. A hollow doll head comprising a, pliable elastic wall having its outer surface formed to provide a pair of apertured eye sockets, a rigid casing member for supporting and exposing a pair of movable eyes at said apertures, and elastic means integral with said wall and extending inwardly of the head for retaining said rigid member.

5. A hollow doll head comprising a pliable rubber wall having its outer surface formed to provide an apertured facial characteristic, a rigid casing for supporting and exposing a facial elementat the aperture, and hard rubber means integral with said wall and extending inwardly thereof for retaining said casing.

6. A hollow doll head comprising a pliable rubber wall having its outer surface formed to provide a pair of apertured eye sockets, a rigid casing member having means for supporting and exposing a pair of movable eyes at said apertures, and hard rubber means integral with said wall and extending inwardly thereof for retaining said casing in position.

7. A hollow doll head comprising a pliable rubber wall having its outer surface formed to provide a pair of apertured eye sockets, a rigid casing member for supporting and exposing a pair of movable eyes at said apertures, and hard rubber reinforcing means integral with said wall and extending over the surface thereof within the forehead to provide rigidity thereto, said reinforcing means partially enclosing said rigid member and retaining it in position.

8. A hollow doll head comprising a pliable rubber wall having its outer surface formed to provide a pair of apertured eye sockets and a rigid casing extending along the wall behind both sockets and adapted to support and expose a pair of movable eyes at said apertures, the inner surface of said wall being formed with an integral inwardly extending element adapted to retain said casing in proper relation to said apertures.

9. A hollow doll head comprising a pliable rubber wall having its outer surface formed to provide a pair of apertured eye sockets, and a rigid casing extending along the wall behind both sockets and adapted to support and expose a pair of movable eyes at said apertures, the inner surface of said walls being formed with an integral inwardly extending element of hard rubber adapted to retain said casing in proper relation to said apertures.

10. A hollow rubber doll head comprising a pliable rubber wall having its outer surface formed to provide a pair of apertured eye sockets, a rigid casing extending along the wall behind both sockets and adapted to support andexpose a pair of movable eyes at said apertures, the inner surface of said wall being formed with an integral inwardly extending cell adapted to support said casing in proper relation to said apertures, and means for retaining said casing within said cell.

11. A hollow rubber doll head comprising a pliable wall of soft rubber composition of varying thickness formed to provide facial characteristics having different degrees of rigidity, and a hard rubber reinforcement inside the wall and integral therewith adapted to provide additional rigidity at particular portions thereof.

12. A hollow rubber doll head comprising a pliable wall of soft rubber composition formed to provide facial characteristics on its exposed face, and a hard rubber reinforcement on its unexposed face and integrally united thereto to provide rigidity to the wall over a localized area thereof.

13. A hollow rubber doll head comprising a pliable wall of soft rubber composition formed to provide facial characteristics on its exposed face,

and a hard rubber reinforcement on its unexposed face and integrally united thereto to provide rigidity to the wall over a localized area thereof, said wall terminating at a neck opening adapted to slidab-ly engage the convex neck portion of a doll and being thickened adjacent the opening to prevent spreading thereof when in use.

14. The combination with a hollow doll-head of molded soft vulcanized rubber having spaced eye openings therein and inwardly open eyesockets at said openings, of internal framing means connected with the head wall at the interior side thereof and rearwardly ope'n toward the interior of the doll-head, said framing means being disposed to extend around and between said eye-sockets with its walls rearwardly projecting from said head wall to bound a receiving and holding cavity for a movable eye-set, insertable therein from its rearward interiorly open face, and an eye-set having a rigid casing conforming to and inserted in said cavity so as to be supported by said framing means, said eye-set including movable eye-elements registered with said eye-sockets and openings of said doll-head, and pendulum means for actuating said eye elements.

15. A hollow doll head comprising a pliable rubber wall having its outer surface formed to provide an apertured facial characteristic, a rigid casing having means for supporting and exposing a facial element at the aperture, and rubber means integral with said wall extending inwardly thereof and forming a compartment open to the interior of the head for retaining said casing in position.

16. A rubber doll head including an eye opening and an inwardly projecting rubber casing at the eye opening, said casing being generally cylindrical and being open at the rear or inner end thereof to facilitate insertion therein of a movable eye assembly from within the head.

17. A rubber doll head including an eye opening and an inwardly projecting rubber casing at the eye opening, said casing being generally cylindrical and being open at the rear or inner end thereof to facilitate insertion therein of a movable eye assembly from within the head, said end opening being smaller than the internal dimension of the casing and thereby forming a shoulder or flange for retainingthe eye assembly within the casing.

18. A dolls head made of bendable rubber, said head having a rigid reinforcement which is lo cated at the interior of the front wall of said head, said reinforcement having an open part between which the eyes of the head are located, said reinforcement having side means which are vulcanized to the side walls of the head.

19. A hollow dolls head having a reinforcement located therein, and associated with the front wall of said head, said reinforcement comprising hard rubber having rigid means secured thereto, said reinforcement having upper and lower spaced portions between which the eye-ball sockets of the head are located. v

20. A hollow dolls head made of bendable rubber, said head having an inner reinforcement vulcanized thereto, said reinforcement comprising rubber having rigid means secured thereto and adapted to support a pair of movable eyes.

21. A hollow dolls head made of bendable rubber, said head having an inner reinforcement vulcanized thereto, said reinforcement comprising rubber having rigid casing means secured thereto, said rigid means comprising upper and lower spaced portions between which the eye-ball sockets of the head are located.

FRANK FENTON. HOWARD M. DODGE. 

